Try. Grow. Achieve.

Welcome to Temple Grove Academy

Welcome to Temple Grove Academy, the first primary school of Temple Grove Academy Trust in Tunbridge Wells. We hope that you will enjoy visiting our website and that it provides you with an insight into our vibrant and happy nursery and primary school. TGA staff are caring, experienced and committed to meeting the individual needs of every child through a happy, secure environment.

Ofsted Reports

Ofsted Inspection April 26-27th 2017

We were very grateful for the huge and overwhelmingly positive response to Ofsted’s Parent View survey from all our parents and carers during or recent inspection, April 26th and 27th 2017 (96% of the 127 responses said how they would recommend TGA to another parent). We were also very proud of how hard the whole TGA team of children and staff worked throughout the inspection.

Our priority has always been the development of the children; they are the reason we are here and why we work as hard as we do - to give them the life chances they deserve. Progress in many areas has turned previous areas for improvement into strengths: behaviour, Early Years, governance and achievement of disadvantaged pupils.

In 2 years our Y6 SATs results have gone from below national average to above national average, with our current year group also making excellent progress. The leadership and support for SEN and disadvantaged pupils has led to these pupils making accelerated progress. Governors and Trustees are considered to know the academy well and are effective in holding the school to account.

We are delighted that our strong provision in Early Years was judged as good with our beautiful environment complemented upon how well it engages the children. We firmly believe that if we “get it right” in the Early Years, we will have a firm foundation on which children will be able to thrive and succeed in the rest of their education. This achievement is evident from our EYFS results which are also above national averages.

We are most proud of TGA’s personal development, behaviour and welfare recognised by Ofsted as “good”. This is a strength at TGA and was immediately apparent to the inspection team too. The tireless work from all staff and high expectations of all pupils enables us to describe Temple Grove as “Tunbridge Wells’ best kept secret”. Our children are a credit: described by the inspectors as polite, friendly, well-motivated, responsible and respectful clearly demonstrating our high aspirations. We even found it difficult to choose pupils to meet the inspectors during the inspection as we were inundated by so many children who wanted to be able to share their pride in being part of TGA!

There is so much of which to be proud. However, we will be continuing to develop the curriculum further following the recent significant focus on the core subjects of Literacy and Numeracy. We firmly believe that if children are not literate or numerate then they will be unable to access the curriculum but it is now time for us to wider that focus to enable the children to develop these skills in depth across the curriculum. Restructure and training has also been identified to enable us to meet these priorities. Our 2 new Assistant Heads who are responsible for leading literacy and the creative curriculum have already begun to raise expectations in what and how we teach.

The Inspectors recognised how the hard work and ambition of senior leaders have had an effect on raising standards and we do not underestimate the hard work that is necessary to continue to drive these improvements. The inspectors praised the academy on how we have closed the attendance gap and the rigorous approaches used that has closed the attendance gap year on year to its current level of 95.2% where the pupils are in school regularly and on time.

We are absolutely committed to continuing this work and are confident that we will be able to show the high level of expectation that parents, children and staff and governors associate with the team at TGA.

"Children in the early years thrive. They make good progress from their starting points across a range of curriculum areas"

"Pupils relish the opportunity to take on roles and responsibilities around the school"

"The behaviour of the school is good"

"Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and their understanding of British Values are promoted well [...] The school core values of 'aspire, respect, responsibility, creativity, resilience and thoughtfulness' further help develop pupils' understanding"

What is Ofsted?

Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. They inspect and regulate services that care for children and young people, and services providing education and skills for learners of all ages.